Until today almost all modern historians have assumed that Caesar’s funeral occured at the earliest on 20 March 44 BCE. However, ancient historiographers like Appian, Suetonius, Cassius Dio, Nicolaus of Damascus and Plutarch (in unison) lead to 17 March as the correct historical date. The assumption of a later date is based on a modern scientific fantasy, an erroneous chronology of the events following Caesar’s assassination, which had originally been published in Drumann-Groebe 1922. However, Drumann had developed his original chronology without the knowledge of the Bios Kaisaros by Nicolaus of Damascus, and in the second edition Groebe tried to mend it, misdating an equivocal letter by Decimus Iunius Brutus and misusing an unstable passage in a letter by Cicero, and thus doing even more harm. Some historians have assumed dates as late as 23 March, and one alternate theory combined the two Senate sessions that occured between Caesar’s murder and his funeral into one day, which led to an occasional dating to 18 March. (The German Wikipedia article on Caesar uses the most common of the false dates: 20 March.)

The new article shows convincingly, where and why Groebe erred in his chronology. Following a complete rebuttal the case is then made for a dating of the funeral ceremony to the Liberalia, the festival of Liber Pater, a Roman god identified with Bacchus (Dionysus). The article provides several arguments based on diverse sources like Suetonius, Ovid, Virgil and Cicero, which clearly prove and/or indicate that Caesar’s funeral proceeded on 17 March. Therefore the dating that can be derived from the ancient historiographers is correct, and it would have been a bizarre coincidence anyway if these ancient authors had all made the same mistake, although they used many different sources. What is definitely bizarre is that Groebe’s warped chronology has deceived—without exception—all of the modern academic community. But this is now over: Caesar was cremated and resurrected as god on Friday, 17 March 44 BCE—on the Liberalia, two days after the Ides of March, on the third day.

This historically accurate chronology was not yet included in the first English edition of Jesus was Caesar (Carotta 2005). It will be interesting to see which innovations will be contained in the second German edition, which has been announced for 2010.

In film {‘Cleopatra’ with Rex Harrison as Caesar}, and theatre {Shakespeare} the funeral seems to come very fast upon his murder, and Antonius is making a speech to the crowd that may, or may not, indicate the ritual you descibe so well. I wonder about Plutarch’s account(s), however, because he also says Antonius was buried beside Cleopatra. Wouldn’t he have been cremated too, as a Roman? Isn’t that a pretty glaring mistake by Plutarch – and why? If indeed he actually died by his own sword in Egypt, as Plutarch describes. Is that the only account of Antonius’s death in the ancient sources? Mightn’t that also add to our research of Caesar’s ceremony? and where in the heck was the all-important Antonius interred, as well as Cleopatra? No one I can find seems to be curious about that. Plutarch writes that Octavian gave them a proper funeral. I don’t suppose Asinius Pollio has anything that’s survived, about it?

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